2 months home

2 months ago:

now:

I can't believe that we have been home with Mia for 2 months. Wednesday was her surgery day and that was our 2 month home anniversary and the day she turned 20 months. It feels like we have had her forever. She is just part of us now and we are so glad to have her. She is a smart, fun and happy little girl. We took several adoption parenting classes as a part of our adoption process and so far we have not had to deal with any of the hard things that could come with adoption. She is just a precious little girl. The fact that she was adopted has not been hard like it is in several cases that I know of but having 3 children can be a little overwhelming at times. The boys are doing great with her and love having her but sometimes they all seem to need things at the exact same time! :)

Since we have been home, Craig and I have rotated weeks off so that one of us is always with Mia. We plan to do this until Christmas. Riley is in 1st grade and Wyatt stays home with us. Wyatt and Mia have become big buddies. They love to play together, however sometimes Mia lets him know that she is in charge :)

Mia had her cleft palate repair on Wednesday and it was a tough surgery. When we went to see her in the recovery room tears trickled down my face. I hated seeing her in so much pain and to be honest all of the blood from her mouth, nose and ears kind of made me sick. Even though it was sad to see her go through this in a way I am so thankful for it. Without her cleft palate we would not have Mia right now. Her cleft lip/palate was the reason she was abandoned so I am thankful that we were able to have the palate repaired. We are so blessed to live in a place with a great children's hospital with one of the best plate repair doctors around. When Mia came out of surgery, Dr. Sargent told us that she would need to have her lip repaired again. The lip was repaired in China however the way they repaired it did not allow for growth of the mouth so we will go in a couple of weeks for her check up and to talk about the lip repair :(

So far we are on day 3 of recovery and it is getting easier but still hard to please her at times. She gets so sad and nothing makes her happy. I am sure she is starving. So far she can only have clear liquids and milk out of a little bottle that has a soft tube for her to drink from. Not exactly how she is used to eating. We have been taking turns eating in another room from her but last night she reached up for me and when I picked her up she saw a banana- her favorite! I felt so bad for her that she couldn't have it. She is not sleeping well because she has to sleep in a carseat. This is a girl who loves her bed and doesn't even want us to rock her. She lunges for her bed every night so the carseat is not really her favorite place to sleep.

I have a few pictures to share from the past couple of months. Thank you for sharing in our journey!

One month with Mia!

Many have asked why my blog stopped. Well, things have been a little more hectic than they were in China. Life around our house is in full swing! I will try to update everyone at least once a month J

I can’t believe that we have had Mia for exactly one month today. In some ways it feels like we just were in China getting her and in other ways it feels like we have always had her. It makes me a little sad to think of all of the things we have missed with her but so excited that we finally have her here and won’t miss anything else. She is such a joy. It is unbelievable what a good baby she is and how well she has transitioned. God has truly been with us during this. Mia is almost always happy. She sleeps so good!! We usually have to wake her up at 9:30 after 13-14 hours asleep. I never thought babies could do that! She is a GREAT eater. She really eats anything we give her and wants more. I can’t imagine what it will be like when she has her surgery and she can’t eat what she wants.

Last week Craig got to stay at home with Mia and Wyatt and this week it is my turn. Riley started 1^st grade and is loving it. Since Mia is such a great sleeper we don’t want to wake her up so we are letting Riley ride the bus this year- he LOVES it. Our days are filled with lots of playing and some cleaning- Wyatt has become quite the cleaner. We had planned to put him in preschool 2 mornings a week but he has done so good with Mia that we are just going to keep him at home. Mia loves to play with him and he has been such a great big brother to her. He plays with her, changes her diaper (with some help J ) and goes up to her several times a day to just give her a kiss. Sometimes she likes it but sometimes not- she is very independent.

It is amazing how far she has come already. At first she really didn’t like for us to kiss on her or give her a bottle and snuggle her but now she just loves to love on us. Every day before nap and bedtime she loves for us to rock her and she snuggles with us. You can tell she likes her new home. I think she even looks forward to getting in her bed. When we put her in there she just buries her face in her pillow and lies there quietly.

Her first Dr. visit for her cleft palate is Friday, Sept 20. Hopefully they will be able to schedule her surgery in October or November. I really hope so since we will be home with her for sure until after Christmas break.

We have been so blessed by adopting Mia. She has brought our family much happiness. I can’t imagine us without her now. I am so grateful that God showed us the path of adoption.  We have also been so blessed by the constant outpouring of love and support from our friends and family. We appreciate all of you more than words can express. Mia is one loved little girl by so many!

Please continue to pray for us and her as she has her first of several surgeries.

Finally home with Mia

Our journey home began by taking a very scary van ride from Guangzhou to Hong Kong. I really thought we weren’t going to make it. The typhoon was coming through and the driver was texting and driving like he was a race car driver. Mia cried a lot of the way because she was so tired. Then right before we got there, she had a terrible poopy diaper and it stunk so bad. Craig and I could just laugh. I am sure the van driver was very ready to get rid of us J Once we arrived in Hong Kong we had about 3 hours until our plane took off so we ate, looked around and chased Mia. I really thought since it was bedtime she would sleep however she had very different plans. We had a 3 hour flight to Seoul, Korea and Mia did ok. Once we got to Korea we had a 5 hour layover. I had really dreaded this but Mia slept most of the time and we got some naps in to. Nothing like sleeping on chairs in the middle of the airport but hey – it worked! We boarded our last flight for home- a little over 13 hours. Our tickets were not together. We had one ticket by the bassinet and another ticket a couple of seats over. The ones by the bassinet are better because you have more leg room. Once we got seated I asked the girl sitting next to Craig and Mia if she would trade. She did and I am certain she was happy about that trade once the flight started J! Mia did really good for the first 9 hours- slept 2 of those so we were able to sleep a little too. There was another baby right next to us so in 3 seats were 3 adults and 2 babies. Thank goodness for the bassinets. Mia really liked it at first- even cried when we couldn’t put her in it b/c the seatbelt signs were on. But then the last 5 hours came. Nothing made her happy. She would not sleep. She was everywhere. We walked her a lot and met some very nice people on the plane! The flight attendants were nice to come and talk to her to try to keep her occupied but this baby was beyond tired. She just didn’t know what to do. We were SOOO happy to land in Atlanta a few minutes early. We were done with our 31 hours of travel – only 2 left headed to Chattanooga. We quickly got through customs and got our bags. Mia was screaming. Our friend Justin picked us up and we were headed home. This was Mia’s first time in a car seat- she wasn’t too happy but we made it home. We arrived to my mom, Uncle Kerry Lee, Craig’s parents and Kara, Morgan and Emory. Mia was so excited. She ran from toy to toy and would only let the men hold her. She has always liked for Craig to hold her more, so when we came in she immediately let the men hold her. Nana and Nanny were a little sad – I don’t think they were able to hold her once. She was busy. The boys loved her. Wyatt really surprised me. He was so funny. I thought he would not have much to do with her since in the past he said he was going to put mud on her and would not pray for her, but as soon as she came in he started playing with her. He has been trying to give her the bottle but she likes to do things herself and just gets mad at him. He even wiped her yucky nose! 

That night we put Mia to bed at 6:15 and she slept straight through until 9:45!!! That is 15 and a half hours! I was able to sleep from 8-6 which is pretty good. I hope that since we had no sleep for 2 days jet lag won’t be a problem!! Today, we let her play outside and went for a walk and she loved it. I had planned to take the boys to the Shrek play which I thought they would be so excited about, but when I mentioned it they were so sad because they wanted to stay and play with Mia. (I think they like her toys better than she does!) When I told them she would be napping they quickly changed their minds J!

We are so glad to be home with home cooking- thanks to nana nanny and Kara we haven’t had to cook but have been eating very good. Also thanks to Haven and Ria for cleaning our house while we were gone. Do you know how great it is to come home to a super clean house?!! And thanks to our neighbors who kept our dog and mowed our yard!  We have been so blessed to have so many wonderful friends!

Even though I am so thankful to be back home and don’t want to travel back to China for a very long time there are some things that I miss: the very firm beds- might need to make a mattress change soon, the all you can eat yummy breakfast buffet, having my room cleaned everyday- I don’t think my house will ever be clean again with 3 kids, having time for a nap everyday because there was nothing else that I needed to be doing!

Thank you for being a part of our wonderful journey to get Mia! She is such a blessing to our family and we are so happy we finally have her! We appreciate everyone’s prayers and support through this very long process! Now starts a new journey with raising 3 wonderful children!

 

Poor baby was scared when she woke up. Notice her pajamas- I didn't have any washed for her so she had to wear the boys pj's!